Effectiveness and Impact on Job Performance of a Community College Law Enforcement Curriculum

Abstract

Few issues are more complex and require more effort than the training and performance of law enforcement personnel to be competent in a society where their performance is significantly important and multifarious to the general public. It is imperative that our law enforcement personnel are well prepared in their respective training programs and in skills that are transferable to their jobs. The theoretical lens that guided this research is the Kirkpatrick (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2006) model. The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent graduates of a law enforcement academy hosted by a Mid-Atlantic regional community college perceived their learning experiences to be effective and transferable to their job. There were no significant differences in the Total Effectiveness, as it relates to Reaction, Learning, Behavior/Performance, and Results/Impact of graduates job performance. The findings of this study also suggest that law enforcement personnel employed by different types of agencies did not differ in their perceptions of the total effectiveness of the law enforcement training program at the academy hosted by a Mid-Atlantic regional community college.